[ back ]
Fuzzy math sweeps City Hall
(by Dave Lange - June 29, 2011)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Fuzzy math sweeps City Hall
Journalists are not known for their mathematical acumen. Maybe it's that right-brain, left-brain thing.
But a story out of Pepper Pike that crossed my desk last week contained a set of figures that sent both sides of my brain into a tizzy. After doing some simple multiplication with the assistance of my calculator, we decided to hold the story until we could get to the bottom of it.
As reported in the past, Pepper Pike, where estimated household income is $133,000 and the median home value is about $530,000, ran into some serious financial straits last year, due in no small part to its heavy reliance on estate-tax collections, which are unpredictable and were lower than usual. The city had no choice but to slash its budget, including the layoff of five police officers and a 25 percent pay cut for other employees. Even though the 1 percent municipal income tax there is the lowest in Cuyahoga County, Pepper Pike voters rejected a ballot issue to raise it to 1.5 percent.
One of the cost-cutting measures was for city service department employees to assume responsibility for janitorial duties in the municipal complex, instead of contracting with a private company. But according to a recent report by the service director to City Council, that diversion of manpower has resulted in a struggle to keep up with more critical jobs.
In convincing City Council to return the janitorial duties to an outside contractor, Service Director Robert Girardi explained that it costs about $51,000 annually for two city employees to do the work -- at $29.50 per hour, six hours a day, three days a week, excluding benefits.
My calculator told me that $29.50 per hour adds up to an annual salary of $61,360, which isn't bad for plowing roads and picking up rubbish -- or sweeping floors and cleaning toilets, for that matter. My calculator also told me that two employees working six hours a day, three days a week add up to a total of 1,872 hours for a year. At $29.50 per hour, that figures to $55,224 for the year, which isn't too far from the $51,000 estimate.
The good news, Mr. Girardi told Pepper Pike City Council, is that the same company that previously did the janitorial duties, Coverall Cleaning Concepts, of Valley View, can do the job three days a week for just $6,648 per year. That seemed like a terrific idea to some of the same City Council members who thought it was a good idea to do the work in-house a year ago.
Even my calculator thought it was a good idea. If two private workers are brought in for six hours a day, three days a week, it told me, that $6,648 would work out to a rate of $3.55 per hour for each of them -- with no benefits and no profit for the company. That's about one-eighth of the hourly rate paid to city workers for doing the work. However, it's less than half the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which just might be illegal.
On second thought, we've learned that city employees may not have spent so much time cleaning the municipal building, it's not really possible to determine how much it cost, and it's not yet known how long the outside contractor will spend there.
So the math really is fuzzy, which may come as no surprise to residents who attend Pepper Pike City Council meetings.
[ back ]
